Dovid Katz Lithuanian Jewish Culture ISBN: 978-963-9776-51-7 Old Price: 75 € New Price: 60 €

We are proud to inform you that Baltos lankos publishing house has recently reprinted Dovid Katz's monumental Lithuanian Jewish Culture. It is the most comprehensive work ever to appear in English on the cultural, linguistic and spiritual worlds of the Litvaks - the Jews hailing from the lands of the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuanian and its successor modern states – Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, and parts of northern Ukraine and northeaster Poland.

This exquisite huge folio volume provides an introduction to Jewish history and culture starting with antiquity and leading methodically to the rise of Lithuanian Jewry some seven centuries ago. It covers the traditional rabbinic culture of Ashkenazic Jewry, the specifically Lithuanian rabbinic and kabbalistic (mystical) traditions, and the Hasidic-Misnagdic conflict. It carries on to cover the various modernistic 19th and 20th century movements, including Yiddishism, Hebraism, Zionism, Socializm, and Jewish Art. Sections are also devoted to the life of the Litvaks in the interwar republics, in emigration centres in America and Israel, and around the world today, including the post-Holocaust remnant of survivors in Eastern Europe. Professor Katz has spent a decade and a half leading expeditions to discover and record these survivors. For the first time, a book on Lithuanian Jewry appears with equal emphasis on religious and secular Jewish life. The chapter on Lithuanian Jewry's most famous scholar, the Gaon of Vilna (1720-1797) contains a complete translation of the never-before translated biography of the Gaon penned by his two sons shortly after his death. It is in many ways astounding, and its more unusual aspects are usually left unmentioned in works on the Gaon. There are also translations of various other never-before-translated excerpts from vital works in the field in Hebrew, Aramaic and Yiddish.

This 400 page volume contains 325 rare photographic images collected by the author, many appearing in print for the first time. There are also 26 maps and charts, all of which are newly produced specially for this volume by Dr. Giedrė Beconytė of Vilnius University's Centre for Cartography.

About the author:

Dovid Katz was born in New York City in 1956. After completing his studies at Columbia University he settled in Britain where he founded and led Yiddish studies at Oxford university for eighteen years (1978-1996). After a stint at Yale, he resettled in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1999 to take up a new chair in Yiddish language, literature and culture at Vilnius University. Professor Katz is the author of dozens of studies in Yiddish language and culture, as well as three collections of fiction in Yiddish. He is a winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Manger Prize and numerous other awards. For a decade and a half, he has led expeditions to seek out and record the last survivors in smaller towns in Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and northern Poland. He is the son of Yiddish poet Menke Katz (1906-1991).

Review

“Lithuanian Jewish Culture is a major work of historic importance”.
Professor Jerold C.Frakes (University of Southern California)

“Dovid Katz is the pre-eminent living master of Yiddish linguistics and culture”.
Professor Arthur Hertzberg (New York)

“Professor Katz's coverage of the dynamic of diversity within Lithuanian Jewry spans the centuries, and reads like a fascinating life-story.”
Professor Dov-Ber Kerler (University of Indiana)

If You are interested in buying this title, please contact us by e-mail eksportas@baltoslankos.lt or by phone + 370 656 90447